Kei KumaiFilmography

Born:
June 1, 1930 in Nagano, Japan
Occupation:
Director, Screenwriter
Biography:
Often overshadowed by the achievements of his better-known contemporaries within the Japanese film industry, such as Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu, filmmaker Kei Kumai nonetheless reigned supreme in terms of raw cinematic craftsmanship. Over the course of nearly six decades, Kumai acquired and...Read More

  • The Sea Is Watching

    Crew: Director

    Actors: Renji Ishibashi, Eiji Okuda, Misa Shimizu, Nagiko Tohno, Masatoshi Nagase, Hidetaka Yoshioka

    Synopsis: Kei Kumai's Umi Wa Miteita (The Sea Watches) has a script written by the late Japanese master Akira Kurosawa. O-Shin (Nagiko Tohno) is a geisha. One day a samurai named Fusanosuke (Hidetaka Yoshioka) appears in her town on the run after having killed a man. She assists him by cutting his hair. The Read More

    7/27/02

  • Nippon No Kuroi Natsu - Enzai

    Crew: Director, Screenwriter

    Actors: Kiichi Nakai, Akira Terao, Yukiya Kitamura

    Synopsis: In 1994, nerve gas was released in the Japanese city of Matsumoto, which led to the death to the death of seven people and severe illness in several hundred others. In time, the attack was proved to be the work of a fanatical religious cult known as Aum Shinrikyo (who were responsible for several Read More

    2001

  • Aisuru

    Crew: Director, Screenwriter

    Actors: Miki Sakai, Atsuro Watabe, Kyoko Kishida, Keiju Kobayashi, Jo Shishido

    Synopsis: In this melodramatic romantic tragedy, a beautiful Japanese girl learns that the best kind of love is selfless love. Virginal Mitsu (pop star Miki Sakai) works in a factory and has a crush on Tsutomu (Atsuro Watabe), a young man she met on the Tokyo streets. One day the two go out, and after some Read More

    1997

  • Deep River

    Crew: Director, Screenwriter

    Synopsis: Based on a book by noted novelist Shusaku Endo, this film concerns three lost souls looking for meaning and redemption: Mitsuko Naruse (Kumiko Akiyoshi) is a recent divorcee still wracked with a guilty conscious; Isobe (Hisashi Igawa) is a white-collar worker morning the death of his wife to Read More

    1995

  • Hikariogoke

    Crew: Director, Screenwriter

    Actors: Rentaro Mikuni, Eiji Okada, Kunie Tanaka, Tetsuta Sugimoto, Taketoshi Naito

    Synopsis: The island of Hokkaido, in Japan, is located near the Arctic Circle and is famous for its cold, snowy winters. In this understated drama, a celebrated writer is being shown some caves, which have glow-in-the-dark moss, by the local school headmaster. One cave has quite a history, as flashbacks Read More

    1992

  • Shikibu Monogatari

    Crew: Director, Screenwriter

    Actors: Eiji Okuda, Keiko Kishi, Mieko Harada, Kyoko Kagawa

    Synopsis: Veteran director Kei Kumai spins this tale about Toyoichi Otomo (Eiji Okuda) who suffers from psychological and spiritual troubles after a horrific industrial accident. He lives with his elderly mother (Kyoko Kagawa) and wife (Mieko Harada) near Mt. Aso in rural Kyushu. He seeks solace in a small Read More

    1990

  • Sen No Rikyu

    Crew: Director, Screenwriter

    Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Kinnosuke Yorozuya, Go Kato, Eiji Okada, Shinsuke Ashida

    Synopsis: For those unfamiliar with its deep meaning, the Japanese tea ceremony appears to be a long, incredibly boring, basically uneventful ritual process. In contrast, for many of its practitioners it offers the key to understanding how to live life in a meaningful manner, and is in itself a refreshment Read More

    1989

  • Uni To Dokuyaku

    Crew: Director

    Actors: Ken Watanabe, Mikio Narita

    Synopsis: In this gruesome and extraordinarily explicit wartime medical horror story, based on a 1948 novel by Simsako Endo, two rival surgical teams at the University Hospital in Kyushu begin on a course of practice which violates every concept of medical ethics after the moderately innocent decision to Read More

    1987

  • Umi to Dokuyaku

    Crew: Director

    Synopsis: Two rival surgical teams at a Japanese hospital perform gruesome experimental operations on healthy patients in this macabre horror story. The liver of a young serviceman is removed as the main course in a planned dinner celebration. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide Read More

    1986

  • Bosatsu: Shimoyama Jiken

    Crew: Director

    Actors: Tatsuya Nakadai, Kei Yamamoto, Kaneko Iwasaki, Ichiro Hashimoto

    Synopsis: Released outside of Japan as Willful Murder, this is based on an actual 1948 case involving the mysterious death of a government official. The president of the Japanese railroads is found dead during a period in which train service is plagued by numerous layoffs, strikes and shutdowns. The Read More

    1982

  • Oginsaga

    Crew: Director

    Actors: Takashi Shimura, Ryoko Nakano, Toshiro Mifune, Daijiro Harada, Atsuo Nakamura

    Synopsis: For a brief period during the 16th century, the Portuguese and Dutch were permitted influence in Japan, with the result that a considerable number of Japanese converted to Christianity. By the late 16th century, a reaction against these outside influences was in full sway. In this story, Lady Ogin Read More

    1978

  • Kita no Misaki

    Crew: Director

    1975

  • Sandakan No. 8

    Crew: Director, Screenwriter

    Synopsis: The very long but very worthwhile Sandakan No. 8 is set in mid-20th-century Japan. A crusading female journalist makes the acquaintance of an elderly woman who years earlier had been shipped against her will to Borneo. As a young girl, she had been sold into prostitution by her impoverished Read More

    1974

  • Asayake No Uta

    Crew: Director, Screenwriter

    Synopsis: Though a farmer and his fellow villagers in this Japanese film resist the effort to turn the unspoiled region in which they live into a land development, they are ultimately unsuccessful. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide Read More

    1974

  • Shinobugawa

    Crew: Director

    1972

  • Chi No Mure

    Crew: Director

    Actors: Mizuho Suzuki, Jukichi Uno

    Synopsis: A Japanese soldier has an affair with a Korean girl at the beginning of World war II. The union produces a child and the backlash of social intolerance of people of different countries. Twenty years later, the soldier is a doctor who aids the victims of the 1945 bombing of Nagasaki. Both the Read More

    1970

  • Tunnel to the Sun

    Crew: Director, Screenwriter

    Synopsis: The building of a dam provides the framework for this Japanese drama. The trouble is that the dam is to be built along a fault line. An engineer is assigned to dig a tunnel so supplies can be brought in. Realizing the grave danger, the engineer is most reluctant to do so. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Read More

    1968

  • Nihon Retto

    Crew: Director

    Actors: Jukichi Uno, Hideaki Nitani, Mizuho Suzuki

    Synopsis: When a US Army sergeant is found drowned in Tokyo Bay, an investigation is launched to determine how and why the man lost his life. The probe uncovers a black market scheme involving counterfeit money, murder, and conspiracy. This suspenseful crime drama was shown at the 1966 Melbourne Film Read More

    1966

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Kei Kumai not available

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